Preparing the MTG-I1 climate satellite for launch

Before Europe’s first Meteosat Third Generation Imager leaves the south of France on the finish of the month aboard a ship certain for French Guiana, this outstanding new climate satellite has been taking middle stage at Thales Alenia Space’s services in Cannes.

The satellite is in its final levels of being checked and readied for cargo to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The ship, carrying the Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1) satellite, will set sail from Fos-sur-Mer close to Marseille on 28 September. Once safely in Kourou, ultimate preparations for raise off will take round seven weeks.

Before its three-week voyage throughout the Atlantic Ocean, MTG-I1 has been on show within the cleanroom at Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the mission.

ESA’s Meteosat Program Manager, Paul Blythe, says that “it’s fabulous to see the first in the family of Meteosat Third Generation satellites almost ready to ship and this is thanks to the many people who have been working so hard to reach this point.”

From geostationary orbit, this new satellite, which boasts two new highly-sensitive devices—a Flexible Combined Imager and a Lightning Imager—is about to take climate forecasting to the following degree.

Hervé Roquet, Head of Research and Development at Météo-France, famous that they “are extremely excited about the MTG mission. It will allow us to take a major step forward in improving the prediction of severe weather events. For example, using MTG data we will be able to predict storms several hours ahead, which is key to issuing warnings for civil safety.”

The full MTG system will span greater than 20 years and therefore includes six satellites, 4 MTG-I and two sounding satellites, MTG-S.

The full mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG-S satellites working in tandem. The remaining satellites will ultimately change these within the first set.

In full operations, one of many MTG-I satellites scans the total Earth disk, together with Europe and Africa, each 10 minutes, whereas the opposite offers native space protection, for instance protecting solely Europe however with a sooner repeat cycle. The single MTG-S satellite can even present local-area protection over chosen components of Earth, with a repeat cycle of usually 5 minutes.

As climate change results in extra frequent and extra extreme climate occasions, correct and well timed climate forecasting and nowcasting is extra necessary than ever.

The new technology of climate satellites will supply a major enhancement of the present imager capabilities supplied by the Meteosat Second Generation, a real-time lightning imaging and an all-new infrared sounding functionality for early detection of extreme storms.

The full MTG configuration is predicted to provide no less than 50 instances extra knowledge than the present geostationary Meteosat Second Generation satellites and ship these knowledge sooner. Moreover, these knowledge might be a lot increased decision that these out there at the moment.

MTG-I’s Flexible Combined Imager, for instance, has extra spectral channels and pictures in increased decision in comparison with Meteosat Second Generation’s Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument.

MTG-I’s Lightning Imager presents a very new functionality for European meteorological satellites. It will repeatedly monitor greater than 80% of the Earth disk for lightning discharges, happening both between clouds or from cloud and floor. Its detectors are so delicate that may be capable of detect comparatively weak lightning, even in full daylight.

Carlo Simoncelli, MTG Lightning Imager Program Manager at Leonardo Space, defined that “the recipe for the lightning imager is largely based on ‘good eyes’ because we need excellent optics to detect even very small lightning signals and ‘good brains’ because we need something approaching artificial intelligence that adapts how it detects lightning depending on different scenarios.”

“The lightning imager is able to detect ‘blink of the eye’ lightning signals that last as little as 6 milliseconds—and from a distance that equates to watching your favorite program 3 kilometers away from your television set.”

With cargo to the launch website only a few weeks away, MTG-I1 will quickly be rigorously packed away safely in its transport container.

Pierre Armand, MTG Program Manager at Thales Alenia Space, commented that “as prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space has led 100 companies and involved more than 200 contracts in the build of MTG-I1. Of course we had to adapt our way of working owing to the COVID pandemic, which was challenging. I’m incredibly proud that everyone worked so hard in these difficult times to get to where we are today and we now see the satellite almost ready to be shipped off to the launch site.”

“There’s still work to do in Kourou but we are certainly ready for this last step and eager to see it liftoff to begin its task in orbit.”

The MTG mission is a cooperation between ESA and Eumetsat. ESA is accountable for the definition and implementation of the MTG satellites and procurement of recurrent {hardware}, whereas Eumetsat is in command of working the spacecraft all through its lifetime and delivering the info to the customers.

Alexander Schmid, MTG Program Manager at Eumetsat, mentioned that they “are excited about the shipment of MTG-I1 and the launch, and then for Eumetsat to take over operations, test and commission it over the next year and disseminate the data for users.”

“We have been working with the user community for several years to help prepare them for the new MTG data. This has involved running special simulation campaigns and providing them with test data so that their systems are ready—all to improve weather forecasts for the benefit of the public.”